Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 24/08/2003 01:23, furuli AT online.no wrote:

> 2. A word dos have meaning apart from a context. If we asked a  group 
> of people how they would understand the  English word "soul," we would 
> get a whole range of different comments, but probably we would find 
> some elements which were common to most, or all comments.

I doubt it, unless you can find some common semantic element between the 
Greek concept of an immortal part of the human being and a style of 
music. The word "soul" with no context will trigger one meaning for some 
English speakers and the other for some others.

> ...
> There are Bible translations that consistently render NEPE$ by "soul," 
> and by looking up these passages, one can see that this is meaningful 
> - although it requires more mental exercise from the reader, because 
> he or she must do more interpretations - than when the word is 
> interpreted by the translators. 

The trouble with this is that, even if we use accept  your model, there 
is minimal overlap between the fuzzy Hebrew concept of NEPE$ and average 
English speakers' even more fuzzy concept of soul.

> 5. Concepts do not exist for the purpose of definition, but in a 
> discussion we need to say something about the core meaning.  The core 
> meaning of NEPE$, as I understand it, is "a living creature with the 
> right to live". ...

This is a reasonable understanding. The trouble is that it has nothing 
at all to do with any common core meaning of soul in English, neither 
the idea of the immortal part of the human nor a style of music.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/